Pandora
by Suki-Itami
Summary: -Sequel to "Nothing Else Matters"- Stan is thirty-five and has gone through the worst loss in his life. In response, he decides his best option is to Earth and go to a newly discovered planet in order to start a new life...


When I was lying in the hospital with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I began having these dreams of flying. I was free… But sooner or later, you always have to wake up.

Fifteen years ago, I lost my legs in a car accident that took the life of the person I held most dear to me. Now that there's a procedure to fix my legs, doctors have been telling me to go for it, but someone without a high-paying job could never pay for the procedure, not in this economy. I find no point in getting it done even if I had the money, my only reason for wanting my legs back, my son was killed three years ago in a random act of violence. I couldn't have been more devastated, and it took two years before I could really move on with my life and accept an offer I got to become a driver for a program called "Avatar."

Six years ago, a new planet called Pandora was discovered. Scientists wanted to get to know the natives, the Na'vi by sending civilians into their society in bodies that resembled the natives, teaching them how to speak English, among other things.

Slowly, I open my eyes and groan as the cryogenic tank I'm in slides open. I look at the brunette man floating over me. "Are we there?"

He nodded. "Yeah, sunshine, we're there." He turns from me as I move my arms to unbuckle the straps holding me into the tank. "We have been traveling for five years, ten months, and six days! You** will** feel fatigued and weak! If you feel any nausea, tell one of the flight crew around you!"

In cryo, it doesn't feel like six years. It feels more like a bad crash from drinking an entire bottle of Jack Daniels in a few hours. Something else I notice as I pull open the locker marked _S. Marsh_ and look in the mirror in the locker, it doesn't seem like I've aged a day since leaving Earth. One of the advantages of cryogenics, I guess. My short black hair still looks like the tousled mess it was in and my blue eyes don't have a wrinkle around them. By my estimate, I'm probably still the thirty-five-year-old I left Earth as.

After I change into a brown t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, I find one of the flight crew to help me to where they had stored my wheelchair for the trip, and then make my way to where I'm supposed to be for descent flight to Pandora. People pass me by, all trying to find their stations before they're left behind.

I roll onto a stealth fighter and take an empty seat on the bench next to a hired gun, waiting for the rest of the seats to be taken. I fold my wheelchair up and sit it next to me on the bench.

The hired gun next to me is looking at a picture of a woman and a child, his family. Losing your family is the hardest thing you ever have to go through. The look on the hired gun's face says that he knows the pain of losing them, and while I lost my son and my lover years ago, the picture he holds looks more recent. He may have lost them shortly before we left Earth to come to Pandora.

He glares over at me. "What're you looking at?"

I shake my head. "Sorry." I look forward, past the head of the person sitting across from me in the stealth fighter.

After a few more minutes, the stealth fighter took off, descending to the surface of Pandora. A decorated military man, a General more than likely, begins walking up and down the aisle. "Shortly, we will be landing on the surface of Pandora. When I tell you to, you will put on your oxygen masks. If you don't, you will be unconscious in twelve seconds and dead in four minutes. Lets have no one dead today, it looks **very** bad on my report."

He tells us to put on our oxygen masks as the stealth fighter landed on the ground. I slip my oxygen mask over my face and twist the knob to seal it shut. The bay door opens and the people around me run out of the stealth fighter. Once everyone passes me, I unfold my wheelchair and slide into it.

There's no such thing as a man who's lost the spirit to be better than what he once was. Even someone who's lost everything and everyone they once held will once again find the spirit to try to a better person again. Even after I lost my lover, I didn't understand the meaning of those words until I lost my son and I found my spirit once again by joining the "Avatar" program.

The military man looks at me as I set my bag on my lap and roll to the open bay door. "Come on, hot rod, don't make me have to wait for you."

"Yes sir," I say quickly as I roll out of the stealth fighter and onto the concrete of the base. In the "Avatar" program, I was forced to train with military-types. Being around them helped me to understand that if you didn't squawk like them, they'd take an immediate dislike to you and walk all over you since you weren't like them, even if you were in your Avatar body.

I look around, barely able to see the trees of the planet beyond the concrete walls of the base. I stop as a large tank rolls by me with arrows sticking out of the wheels. What happened there? Once it passes me, I continue towards the concrete building ahead of me. A few people in tall human-controlled mechanized robots walk around me. Some look down at me as if they wonder why I'm on Pandora, they probably think I'm useless, no one of interest, someone to throw in front of the hired guns to protect them from any attacks.

Once inside, I follow the signs to the new arrivals' "orientation" room. Before I enter, I can hear the voice of another military-man explaining something about the arrows of the Na'vi. I roll to a stop near the middle of the room, behind where everyone else is sitting.

"…Do **not** underestimate them! If you underestimate them, the Na'vi will shoot you dead! Now, to the terrain of Pandora…" I sigh quietly. Nothing like an old school safety lecture to put your mind at ease. After another few minutes, the lecture is over and I'm exiting the room to go to where I'd meet Grace Augustine, the creator of the "Avatar" program. The only problem with that is…I have no idea where to go…


End file.
